A useful way to hold malign is as the dark half of a pair. Latin built it from malus, bad, and genus, sort or kind, so the picture is of something that is a bad sort at heart — the twin of benign, the good sort. As an adjective that is exactly what it says: an influence or an intention with bad will inside it. As a verb it takes the same bad will and aims it at a person through words, saying things that are not true until other people see that person badly too.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary traces both the adjective and the verb to Middle English maligne, from Old French, from Latin malignus — malus (bad) plus genus (sort, kind) — and points to benign as the matching form.
Wiktionary 記載形容詞和動詞同一條線：中古英語 maligne，來自古法文，再上溯拉丁文 malignus，由 malus（壞）加 genus（種類）構成，並指出 benign 是對應的另一半。
Wiktionary (kaikki extract, source_refs kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:896720165 and :896731867): 'From Middle English maligne, from Old French maligne, from Latin malignus, from malus (bad) + genus (sort, kind). Compare benign.'
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